


Dark Laundry!

by MacBeth



Category: MacGyver (TV)
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Crack, Gen, Laundry, dark!laundry, dark!laundry!fic, floral shirts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacBeth/pseuds/MacBeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's darkfic and dark laundry. Now, there will be dark!laundry!fic. How much trouble can Mac get into just doing his laundry? How dark can the laundry get? This is a reader participation WIP. Join in at your own risk!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. for whom the phone rings

Strains of cheerfully twangy music nudged MacGyver out of sleep, and he opened one eye and watched the sun heroically setting on his TV as the credits rolled on one of his favorite Westerns. Outside, the day was bright and clear – there'd been a strong wind off the ocean all night, and the smog had been blown inland and scattered, leaving the sky a clean pale blue. A fresh breeze still carried the smell of the Pacific into Mac's living room, through the open windows of the houseboat. He could hear seagulls squabbling out on the dock.

Life might, just possibly, get better than this, but not by much. A lazy day stretched before him: nothing he actually had to do, and plenty of time to do whatever he wanted, beginning with watching TV. He could putter around if he liked – his motorcycle needed an oil change and there was always something worth doing with the cars. The very pretty new neighbor three houseboats down had dropped a few hints about needing odd jobs done, and based on the smells that came from her kitchen on a regular basis, the offer of dinner wouldn't be hard to accept. He did, eventually, need to get groceries: he was out of fresh fruit and the sprouts in the fridge had sprouted. And sooner or later, he was going to have to get caught up on his laundry. He was wearing his last clean white T-shirt, the oldest and thinnest of the lot, and his hamper was overflowing.

But that could wait. Pete was out of the country and Mac's next assignment was already settled and wouldn't start for a week, so he was safe from interruptions.

He'd just decided to put another Western into the VCR when the telephone rang.

 

Should MacGyver:

\- Answer the phone himself?

\- Let the answering machine pick it up?

* * *

_To participate, leave your answer in a review, or go to my Livejournal at bethinexile dot livejournal dot com and vote in the poll there. You do not have to have a LiveJournal account to vote (although I reserve the right to discount the votes of anyone who tries to sell me knockoff sports watches in the comment thread). You should probably read through to the most recent installment and then vote on that one, but if you want to vote on every chapter, hey, go for it!_

_~ Beth_


	2. a swift exit

_The poll at the end of Part 1 was close, but the answering machine eventually won._

 

The phone continued to beep shrilly, and MacGyver's resolve crumbled. He was reaching for the phone when the answering machine clicked on.

_'Hi. This is MacGyver. We all know how these things work, so when you hear the beep, go for it.'_

"Mac? It's me! C'mon, buddy, pick up. I know you're there. You must be. I can _feeeel_ it. You know that correspondence course I've been taking in precognition and clairvoyance and all that stuff?" Jack Dalton's voice prattled away, and Mac snatched his hand back as if the phone had suddenly become radioactive.

"Well, let me tell you, buddy, it's amazing! I got myself a bunch of those US Geological Survey maps, and I've been going over them with a dowsing pendulum doodad for one of my homework assignments, and I've got a red-hot strike! Gold, buddy! For real! The only thing is, I'm gonna need a bit of help getting out to the place to check it out – you see, my car kinda got repo'd last week, so I've been stuck at home, well, good thing I've got the correspondence course to keep me busy – "

The answering machine ran out of tape two minutes and thirty-five seconds later. Mac didn't hear it. He was upstairs in his loft bedroom, hastily cramming laundry into a dufflebag. The nearest laundromat was in the main marina services building – bad idea, Jack might be able to find him there. He had his key to Pete's apartment, and he needed to water Pete's plants, and there was a little laundromat on the corner of the block there – but that was kind of a long drive. Heck, maybe he'd just get in the Jeep and stop at the first laundromat he saw, as long as it was in some part of town where Jack Dalton couldn't find him.

 

Should MacGyver:

\- Drive to Pete's apartment?

\- Use the laundromat at the marina?

\- Drive around at random until he finds a place to do his laundry?


	3. positive signs

_A/N: Well, that last poll was nice and clear! Driving around at random wins!_

 

_Now, don't get me wrong. I like doin' stuff for people. I've been doin' that kinda thing for as long as I can remember, and I wouldn't keep it up if I didn't like it. I like the fact that I can do it. Usually it's satisfying, sometimes it's fun, and for the last several years it's been pretty good as a lifestyle. The hours aren't bad and the perks can be great._

_What is not fun is bein' asked to do stuff that just plain won't work. I'm not big on hopeless causes. Or crazy schemes, either – although, yeah, some people might claim that most of my own ideas are crazy, and maybe they'd be right, in a way, except I've got a pretty good track record of getting crazy schemes to work. That oughta count for something. It's the reason I'm still alive, after all._

_And I really don't like bein' whined at when I've already said no. I suppose that if Jack ever listened to people saying 'no', he'd never get anywhere . . . but he hasn't exactly gotten anywhere so far anyway._

 

MacGyver's mood improved as he drove. He knew LA well enough to find enough back and side streets that he could mostly avoid the worst of the traffic, especially on days like today, when he didn't have to go anywhere in particular. The sun was warm but not fierce, and with the top down on the Jeep, the wind blowing through his hair seemed to blow the crankiness away.

He thought he'd been driving at random, but somehow he wasn't surprised when he found himself crossing Chavez Avenue. On both sides of the street, the signs on the shops were now all bright red and yellow splashes of Chinese characters, with smaller English text underneath, often misspelled. Mac wondered for an irreverent moment if any of the Chinese signs were also misspelled, and what they might accidently say if they were.

Mac loved Chinatown. He had a lot of friends here, and he seemed to pick up a few more with every visit. When you did favors for folks here, they remembered, and returned the favor when you needed it, often with interest. It was a good place to have friends.

It was also a good place to find a laundromat, since there seemed to be almost as many laundromats in Chinatown as there were lawyers' offices in the corporate zone of LA or fly-by-night talent agencies on the fringes of Hollywood. Mac pulled up in front of one that had an especially cheerful sign, in both red and yellow, and an empty parking place out in front. Auspicious on all counts.

Inside, most of the customers and all of the staff were Chinese. At the counter, a pretty girl with a waterfall of dark hair changed his singles for a little paper cup of quarters, and gave him a radiant smile in the bargain when Mac thanked her in his execrable Mandarin. An old woman, her face seamed with deep furrows, popped out from an inner room, examined MacGyver with the critical eye of a professional horse-trader, and delivered a torrent of Chinese that made the girl blush. Mac found himself blushing as well, and retreated behind the first row of washing machines.

In the relative safety there, he dumped out his dufflebag and eyed the unpromising contents. He usually just shoved stuff into the machines at random, but the last time he'd done that, one of his flowered shirts had bled multicolored streaks onto every white T-shirt he owned, and he'd had to give them all away to a buddy who ran a tie-dye shirt stand on the beach. The funny thing was that the flowered shirt didn't seem to be any less bright after all that, which meant it probably had more ammo in reserve.

 

_\- special poll: pick any and/or all! -_

Should MacGyver:

\- Sort out the dark laundry from the light?

\- Put the flowered shirts in with the dark laundry?

\- Put the flowered shirts in by themselves?

\- Forget the laundry and go flirt with the pretty girl?

\- Tell the old woman that he'll fix anything she needs in the shop if she'll get someone to do his laundry for him?


	4. coming clean

MacGyver opened two washing machines and begun stuffing clothes into both. He had intended to toss the flowered shirts in with the jeans, but that machine filled up faster than the one with the lighter stuff. He ended up with one machine that was too full, one that wasn't nearly full, and a pile of odd clothes that couldn't be washed with the white stuff, but wouldn't make up a load on their own. And then there was the pile of towels . . . this was why he hated doing laundry. It _always_ ended up like this.

He glanced over towards the counter, checking to see whether the pretty girl was still there. Nope. The old woman – grandmother or whatever – was nowhere to be seen either. Mac had briefly contemplated asking them if there might, just possibly, be something broken around the place – _anything_ – that he could fix if they'd just deal with the laundry for him. But there was nobody behind the counter just at that moment, so he sighed and turned back to the machines.

That was the moment when he realized he hadn't brought any detergent.

Okay, fine. He had plenty of quarters; there had to be detergent for sale somewhere. He spotted the dispenser machine, over near several other vending machines, and hurried over, digging in his pocket for a couple of quarters.

He didn't see the man who popped out from behind the row of dryers, clutching a styrofoam cup of fortunately lukewarm liquid, until he'd walked right into him. The tepid stuff in the cup splashed over Mac, splattering pale stains all over his last clean t-shirt.

 

_[pick any and/or all]_

Should MacGyver:

\- Yell at the guy for being so careless?

\- Try to find out what the liquid is?

\- Take off his shirt?


	5. the great unwashed

"Ack!"

MacGyver pawed uselessly at his chest as the lukewarm liquid started to soak in. He could smell what it was clearly enough, although where the guy had found tea – ordinary tea, not green tea – in a laundry in the middle of Chinatown was a mystery.

The Tea Guy was clucking in embarrassed alarm, and had snatched up a random towel to try to mop up the mess. "Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry, so terribly sorry, that was _terribly_ careless of me!" Another surprise: the voice was cultured and polished, with a well-bred English accent. The guy had fox-red hair and fox-sharp eyes and nose. A sharp dresser, too: the neat pinstriped shirt and tie would have made Mac feel grubby even without the fresh stains on his t-shirt.

"Hey, it's okay. No harm done." Mac fended off another dab with the towel. As the cloying dampness spread, he gave a mental shrug – _heck, at least I'm already doing my laundry_ – and peeled the shirt off. Over beyond the counter, he heard a stifled giggle and squeal, followed by a staccato chatter of Chinese. He glanced over, feeling his neck beginning to redden, and saw the pretty girl had reappeared and was staring at him. _Great. Just great._ Beside her, the grandmother was delivering a rapid-fire torrent, incomprehensible but emphatic – probably a lecture on the unsuitability of American men who couldn't keep their clothes clean even in a laundromat.

"I really am so sorry about all this," the Tea Guy was still saying. "I'd offer to have it washed, but that seems a trifle meagre. Or I could offer to get you some tea or coffee or something – "

Mac shifted the damp t-shirt to his left hand so he could proffer his right. "Naw, thanks, I just had some." He smiled. "Name's MacGyver."

"Colin Davis." The handshake was brisk and firm.

"Nice to meetcha, Colin. You're not from around here, I take it?"

Colin quirked an eyebrow. "Well, neither are you. So to speak."

Mac grinned. "Yeah, that's true." He wadded up the damp t-shirt and tossed it towards the half-sorted piles of clothes in front of his washing machines, remembered he still needed detergent, and turned back towards the vending machines.

"You're out of luck there," Colin said. "The dispenser thingummy's broken."

"Is it?" Mac felt a sudden spark of hope. He usually got good results when he offered to fix broken stuff, after all. At least the collision with Colin had brought the old woman back out to where he might be able to start negotiations.

He hurried over to take a look, and his heart sank again. The coin-operated dispenser for the detergent, bleach, laundry booster and fabric softener wasn't just broken: it had been broken open and was empty, the enameled aluminum lid dangling by one busted hinge to show the empty slot for the soap packets. Fixing it wouldn't get him anywhere.

"Dang."

 

Should MacGyver:

\- Leave the laundromat and go find a place to buy detergent?

\- See if the pretty girl can be charmed into giving him some? (detergent, that is!)

\- Ask Colin for some?

\- Try to get some from one of the other customers?

\- Look for the ingredients to make it himself? 


	6. the missing ingredient

MacGyver studied the broken and despoiled dispenser.  _Okay, no soap._   He reached into a compartment and extracted the sole remaining unpilfered item, and grinned when he saw the familiar mule team on the packet.

Colin was watching him quizzically, with the what’s-this-crazy-guy-up-to-now expression that was even more familiar than the logo of the mule team and wagons.

“What’s that?”

“Borax.”

“As in Borax, the Barbarian Lord of Beluchistan?”

Mac grinned again and shook his head. 

It was pointless, he knew.  Probably stupid.  It would be easier to just go buy some, or even try haggling with the old woman; they must have their own supply here, after all.  But it just wouldn’t be as much _fun_.  He hadn’t tried making his own laundry detergent since his teens . . . but there had been an especially lean period, when even the tiniest economies had carried real weight.  Any effort that could smooth even a single worry line from his mother’s face had been worth it, and homemade detergent cost a fraction of what the ready-made stuff did.  And the recipe couldn’t be simpler.

“If I can get a couple more ingredients . . . I don’t suppose you’ve got any washing soda?” 

Colin looked blank and shook his head in turn.

MacGyver detoured past his washing machines, where the unsorted remains of the half-sorted clothes were still lying in a heap beside the empty dufflebag.  He grabbed the first shirt on the top of the pile, one of the print shirts that he thought of as ‘cheerful’ and his friends mostly called ‘lurid’ or occasionally ‘agonizing’, and shrugged into it.  As he was doing up the buttons, he glanced towards the counter and saw the pretty girl was still watching him.  She looked faintly disappointed.  Behind her, the grandmother sniffed and disappeared into the back room again.

Feeling more than a little relieved – the old woman’s sharp black gaze had felt like jabs from obsidian needles – Mac strolled over to the counter, leading with his best friendly smile.  “Scuse me.  Do you have any washing soda?”

“Sodah?”  The girl looked nonplussed.  She pointed over Mac’s shoulder, back at the corner where the vending machines were.  “Sodah.  Coke, Splite, loot beeah, Doctah Peppah.”

Mac realized she was pointing at the soda machine.  “Um, no, sorry.  I mean washing soda.  Um . . . ”  _Aw, crap, I spoke to her in Mandarin earlier and she’s probably Cantonese.  And I don’t know any Cantonese._  Not that he could say ‘washing soda’ in Mandarin either.  He looked past her, beyond the counter, and spotted a large, empty bright yellow box in the trash.  He pointed.  “Washing soda.  Arm and Hammer.”

She looked, frowned, then smiled like an explosion of impish sunlight.  “Oh!  Ahmanhammah!”

“Yeah.  You got any more?”

An odd look crossed her face – not confusion or even the usual puzzlement – but she gestured towards a doorway leading into the service area behind the laundromat.  Mac smiled and thanked her, and hurried into the back, hoping she wasn’t simply humouring him.  The look might have been Just-Humour-the-Crazy-Person-and-Maybe-He’ll-Go-Away.

He followed a narrow corridor that smelled of laundry soap and bleach, with an additional faint chemical whiff from the dry cleaners next door to the laundromat, and spotted a storage room off to the side.  There was an extra-large industrial-size version of the familiar yellow box, between a clutter of brooms and mops and buckets and a deep utility sink.  Mac snagged a spare bar of soap from the sink – the missing ingredient for his detergent recipe – and hunkered down to worry open the box of washing soda.

A sudden explosion of furious Chinese shouting, like unexpected and ugly vocal fireworks, startled him so badly he almost toppled onto the floor.  For a moment, he thought he’d been busted by the Chinese grandmother, and was going to have to explain his noble intentions regarding her granddaughter as well as her washing soda.  Then he realized that the sound was coming from outside.  There had been a door at the end of the corridor, which had been propped open to let in the clean air from the pleasant day, and the angry shouts were coming in from the alley behind the laundromat.  From the sound of it, there were two men out there, maybe more, and the quarrel was serious – possibly bad enough to turn into a real fight.

 

Should MacGyver:

\- Go out into the alley and see what’s going on?

\- Go lurk by the door and try to listen to the argument?

\- Go ask the girl what the shouting’s about?

\- Stay where he is until things quiet down?

\- Go back into the laundromat and just do his laundry?

* * *


	7. order of magnet-tude

_Pete keeps telling me I’m a ‘trouble magnet’. Harry said the same thing, when he finally found out just what it is that I do for a living. Actually, he said a lot more than that, including “You call that making a living, Bud?” He was kidding, of course, mostly. He understands why it’s important, and why I’d rather do it than anything else._

_But honest, they’re exaggerating in a big way. The way they talk, you’d think I couldn’t get up in the morning without stumbling into something complicated and dangerous. Just as an example, I’ve gone fishing thousands of times, but I’ve only walked in on a crime in progress once while I was doing it. Well, twice – three times if you count that one in Scotland – anyway, most of the time, it’s just me and the fish, or me and no fish, the way it should be._

_Same with buying groceries or getting gas or going hiking or any other ordinary daily routine. Or doing laundry. Just because I occasionally run into trouble doesn’t mean I actually have more of it around me than anyone else. The thing is that I notice trouble a bit more easily than most folks do – and when I see trouble, I’m no good at ignoring it or walking away._

_I’ve done my laundry about as many times as anyone else – maybe not quite as often as some, but I’d rather go fishing than do my laundry, who wouldn’t? Doing laundry doesn’t usually involve trouble, or criminal activity, unless you count the way people steal your dryer when you turn your back on it, or the way some washing machines eat just one of a pair of your favorite socks. That’s not actually a crime, although I think it’s a violation of the laws of physics._

_Anyway, where was I?_

_Oh, yeah. Lurking beside the open door to the alley behind the laundromat, listening to angry shouts in Chinese and trying to figure out if this is actual trouble or just normal family dynamics. I think the loudest voice belongs to the guy who owns the dry cleaning place next door, and the sullen one is his son, but the third voice is trouble. Definitely, Trouble._

 

The angry shouts and curt replies weren’t entirely in Chinese: most residents of Chinatown were casually multilingual, and from what Mac could make out, the owner of the younger voice was trying to tune out the current set of parental orders by pretending to have forgotten the home dialect. The languages toggled with disorienting ease, sometimes in the same sentence.

“ – those are my _friends_ you’re calling – ” 

“ – if you think ‘hanging out’ with that kind of – ” 

“ – I’m over eighteen and I can do what I want – ” 

The voices had drowned out the sounds of traffic out on the main streets, but now a new sound drowned out the voices: a single car with a V-8 engine, revving loudly, peeling around the corner – yes, coming _into_ the alley and making a screechingly noisy stop close to the combatants, a lot closer than Mac would’ve liked if he’d been the one standing out in the open. 

An electric car window hummed open, and a deep, rough voice tossed another handful of hard-edged Chinese words into the angry stew. MacGyver recognized a few of the words in the newcomer’s remark, and none of them were words he’d be willing to use himself. The younger voice started to answer, and was cut off by a single curt phrase from the older man. 

A car door slammed and gravel crunched under heavy footsteps. Lighter footsteps started towards the car – probably the son – then a confused scuffling sound, as if the father had blocked his way. 

“Shit, Lenny, you still letting your old man kick you around? Maybe I oughta come back after he stops wiping your ass for you? Thought you were past fucking kindergarten.” The accent was unmistakably American. Apparently, the new voice’s mastery of Chinese was limited to a few obscenities. 

“I told you to keep your ugly face away from here!” 

“ _Jesus_ , Dad – ” 

“Mind your own fucking business, grampa.” 

“I’m not anyone’s grandfather, certainly not yours.” 

“You gonna listen to this old man’s shit, Lenny?” 

More heavy footsteps, crunching closer. The father’s voice shouting “What the hell are you doing? Put that down!” A loud crash. 

“Oops.” 

“Get out of here!” 

“You need to shut the fuck up, gramps. Like, _now_.” 

_Okay, that’s it._ MacGyver had no idea what he was going to do or say, but if he didn’t interrupt, the confrontation was going to turn physical and brutal in another few seconds. 

He walked out into the alley, whistling aimlessly, and looked around. He pretended to suddenly notice the trio in the alley – an older man in clean workclothes and a young man in his early twenties who was definitely a close relation – contrary to cliché, Chinese people did _not_ look alike any more than anyone else, and family similarities were just as clear as in any other group. Facing the older man and towering over both, another young man, maybe mid-twenties, wearing a suit and expensive shoes and an ugly expression. The car behind him, a brand-new black Corvette C4, matched the suit. Shiny Shoes was massively stocky, and was holding a short length of rusty iron bar. Next to him, the rough ground of the alley was littered with broken glass. 

“Howdy, folks!” Mac looked around at the tense, angry faces, and waited for inspiration.

 

Should MacGyver:  


\- Say something pointless and idiotic, to defuse the situation?

\- Say something clever and intellectual, to confuse the situation?

\- Say something tough and faintly threatening, to redirect the situation?

\- Say something in bad Mandarin, then apologize?

\- Say nothing at all until one of the others speaks?

\- Change his mind and go back inside?

* * *

  


_To participate, leave your answer(s) in a review, or go to my Livejournal at bethinexile dot livejournal dot com and vote in the poll there. The direct link to this segment is here:[Dark!Laundry! part 7](http://bethinexile.livejournal.com/38883.html). You do not have to have a LiveJournal account to vote there. ~ Beth_

**Author's Note:**

> If you really want to know the origin of this insane exercise in sustained crackitude, it's here: http://bethinexile.livejournal.com/21286.html.
> 
> If you really want to know the end . . . I haven't gotten there yet!


End file.
